How Unfairness Drives Us Crazy

Have you ever felt furious when somebody offers you an unfair deal? Molly Crockett tells David Edmonds about experiments in economics and nueroscience that suggest we might be hard-wired to reject unfairness

Dr Molly Crockett studies the neuroscience and psychology of altruism, morality, self-control, and economic decision-making in healthy people and in psychiatric disorders. She takes an interdisciplinary approach, combining methods from social psychology, behavioral economics, neuroscience and philosophy. Her work has been published in top academic journals including Science, PNAS and Neuron. Her research has been covered by The New York Times, BBC, The Telegraph, The Independent, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, and New Scientist, among other news outlets. Dr Crockett has written articles for WIRED magazine and The Guardian and has appeared as a scientific guest on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme and BBC Two’s Dara O’Briain’s Science Club. Her 2012 TED talk (Beware Neuro-bunk) has more than a million views.